


Fairytale

by woodswit



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fantasy World, Modern AU, ish, silly silly fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodswit/pseuds/woodswit
Summary: Sansa Stark, interior designer with a quiet life, wakes up inside a tree trunk and on the run from an evil wizard with the prince of the elves. Things only get weirder from there.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 14
Kudos: 61





	Fairytale

**Author's Note:**

> i'm experimenting with short chapters! This is a shorter fic to see me through some sticky wickets with my original writing. Cheers!

**Chapter One**

“Oh, I love it. Really brings the outdoors inside,” Margaery gushed, running a manicured hand over the walls, rose gold jewelry glinting in the twinkle lights. “Just because we don’t have a country house—yet—that doesn’t mean our baby can’t love trees,” she added.

It was possibly Sansa’s best work yet. She beamed at her client (and best friend) and stepped back to admire her own work. She rarely openly patted herself on the back for anything she did—“I’m just bringing your vision to life,” she always told her clients, reaffirming the good taste they thought they had—but this was different. When Margaery and her brother had approached her to design the nursery of their baby-to-be, she had more or less dropped everything and given it her all. 

Maybe it was because she loved them, maybe it was because no one had given her carte blanche in years, or maybe it was because she usually designed kitchens for couples who never cooked or bedrooms for people who lived like they were on stage. Whatever the reason, she had found herself drowning in sketches late at night, wandering through children’s stores in London, or curled up in her study’s window seat, lovingly paging through the fairy tales she had loved so much as a little girl.

It had captured her imagination, and what she had eventually come up with was her most ambitious, most labor-intensive work to date. She had not known until the last leaf had been painted on the wall if it would actually work—but standing here now, with Margaery’s eyes aglow, and her creation built up around her, she knew she’d done it.

It was a fairy tale forest come to life. The crib was built into the trunk of an enormous tree with soft, hand-cut leaves that hung in sweeping branches and glittered with tiny lights. The walls were covered in stories that Sansa had seen in her dreams: a dragon’s scales twinkling with moonlight; a fearless prince with eyes that glinted as dangerously as his blade; a silver-haired queen; and a sorcerer with sweeping robes of purple and clever, magic eyes.

The two women stood there in comfortable silence, admiring Sansa’s handiwork and picturing the baby-to-be growing up among this secret little world that Sansa had so lovingly crafted for her. At last, Margaery turned a wry smile on Sansa. “And now, I think it’s time for you to go take a nap, and maybe get some highlights.” She tugged on a lock of Sansa’s hair. “I’ve never known you, Sansa Stark, to skip on a salon appointment. And besides, you have that blind date coming up—you've got to be feeling your best.”

“Ah, yes, wouldn’t want to miss that one for the world.” Sansa rolled her eyes as Margaery laughed at her. 

The two women walked to the foyer, and Margaery threw her arms around Sansa. 

“You’re _lovely,_ ” she said into Sansa’s hair. “You have entire worlds inside of you. You deserve someone like that, too.” 

A lump formed in Sansa’s throat. 

_Or maybe the reason I can’t find someone is precisely_ because _there are entire worlds inside of me._

She didn’t say it. Instead, she squeezed Margaery. 

“You’re lovely, too,” she said, releasing her. “But now I must go—leftovers and a hot bath and a book call.” 

“Ugh, that sounds better than sex,” Margaery agreed with a groan, touching her round belly. “I’ll secretly film Robb’s reaction to the nursery and then send it to you,” she promised. “He’s going to lose his mind.”

She should have felt relieved and accomplished. She should have gone out and celebrated. After all, this had been a month’s work of extra, frantic work on top of her normal, paying work. She had fit it in around her other clients, dropping everything about her personal life—highlights included—to make this fairytale forest come to life.

But as Sansa stepped out of Robb and Margaery’s townhouse and into the rainy evening, she felt as hollow as the papier-mâché tree she had spent so many nights on. Her mobile was pinging with work emails— _do you think the nickel or brass?_ the latest one read—and there was nothing to go home to but three-day old wine and a flat full of sketches.

Sansa's own home had to be impressive—she met clients there and it was one way they might judge her abilities—so as a result, her flat was usually pristine and arranged, down to the last rosewood-colored throw pillow. But the flat that Sansa opened her front door to was the muddled aftermath of an explosion of creativity: at the center of her living room, before her faux-fireplace, sat the half-built gnarled, hollow tree trunk that had been the prototype for the one she had constructed in Robb and Margaery's nursery. She had spent so many sleepless nights experimenting, layering on the papier-mâché and, sometimes, simply curling up inside the hollowed-out trunk to test what it might feel like to sit inside of it.

In the real one, of course, there was a cozy, soft cushion and a dozen throw pillows so that Margaery might curl up there and read to her daughter, and then, later, her daughter might curl up there herself with a flashlight and a contraband book, and get lost in Narnia or Hogwarts. Sansa stared at the prototype trunk for a moment, then listlessly dropped her keys in the bowl.

She'd deconstruct it tomorrow, she told herself. She wasn't ready to let go of it just yet.

In the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of wine and went to the refrigerator to fish for something to eat—and pinned to the front of the refrigerator was her first sketch of that prince, his eyes silver and sharp as his sword.

She paused before the sketch. She had fallen asleep next to the tree trunk one night and had woken up and seen him: solemn grey eyes and wild dark hair and a gentle mouth and a fierce blade. It made her smile; he was just the sort of character she would have fallen in love with as a teenaged girl. Dark and brooding but, of course, courageous and kind, too. Perhaps it was too transparent; she had painted her childish wishes onto her brother and sister-in-law's walls.

"Silly, silly girl," she muttered.

She slid the sketch from under the magnet, crumpled it, and tossed it in the rubbish.


End file.
